Redistricting: The Road Ahead

The St. Louis County Council Reapportionment Commission spent most of Monday's meeting listening to a presentation on St. Louis County

census figures and sketching out details for the next two July public hearings.

It's inevitable that some districts will expand. Four St. Louis County Council districts lost population including District 2, which covers Hazelwood. That will lead to the expansion of those areas.

The  14-person body evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, will have to draw the new boundaries for the St. Louis County Council based upon the 2010 census.

The commission is planning two public meetings throughout the next two weeks for the task.

The first one will take place at 7 p.m. Monday at . The second will take place at 7 p.m. July 25 in the J.C. Penney Conference Center at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Allen Icet, a former Republican state lawmaker from Wildwood, said the commission has until Thanksgiving to pass a reconfigured map. It must receive nine votes in order to go into effect. If the commission can't reach a consensus by the deadline, courts will end up drawing the new boundaries.

Redistricting can often become a contentious affair. An effort to reconfigure Missouri’s congressional districts proved arduous, and redrawing lines for state legislative boundaries could end up being decided by judges.

Yet Icet and Page said they hope the commission can complete a map by a late November deadline and keep boundary-drawing away from judges.

“If you look at the demographic shift, it’s just a couple of percent,” Icet said. “What’s going on in St. Louis County is you add a percent or you take away two or three percent. It’s not radical line shifts because of significant demographic shifts.”

“Hopefully it won’t be as contentious as (drawing state legislative boundaries),” Icet said.

Added Page: “From my informal discussions about these meetings with other commission members, I’m optimistic that we can achieve a map.”

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